Seasonal Affect

 
If I walk on the sunny side
 
       Now that I know I’m doing it
 
                  Then I pump my arms
 
And try to laugh off the cold edge of imitation
 
I don’t regret the season of not going
 
Slumping on the subway
 
                                       Sexy moves like that
 
It didn’t mean that much
 
                                        To sit me in that chair
 
And make me listen to/in              Hardwood and crunchy
 
To listen to your thoughts
 
            Accumulated on little paper
 
                                       I regret the season of not going
 
       The pity of truth     the sheen of all liars     Time     wasted     The pure faith
 
            Of young love for old things
 
I do regret that metaphor      is      phony      Symbolism is/not        untrue
 
Manifestos and statements from a butchier life
 
                     Love as a seasonal affect
 
            Now that I know
 
I’m doing         it
 
I try to laugh
 
 
 

Dr. Jane

 
Shallow breaths.  Present.  Static.
 
Technicolor mammograms.
 
I am not the one      to run in
 
And save the day.
 
It’s not safe to have company at the breakfast table.
 
No one ever wows the clown.
 
A surreal animation knocks on the door.
 
The beauty of the apple
 
                                        lies in its refracted sense of imagery.
 
You could go blue or funhouse.
 
I don’t know that there is
 
             any way around this.
 
A pot of coffee    and all the cream it takes to shut you up.
 
No one ever wows the clown.
 
Not safe to try.
 
 
 
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Rita Stein is a librarian and works in Brooklyn. A native of Baltimore, she is comfortable in stone, brick and confusion. She has had poems published in Blue Collar Review, The Dariens, Loch Raven Review and Esque Issue 3.